


trapped behind those pretty blue eyes

by caramel_kisses



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anger, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt Phil Lester, Hurt/Comfort, I tried really hard not to romanticize too much, I'm nervous about posting this, Kissing, M/M, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, Visual Hallucinations, Vomiting, Yelling, auditory hallucinations, sex mention, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-16 06:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10566033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramel_kisses/pseuds/caramel_kisses
Summary: AmazingPhil's channel has always been filled with stories about strange people he's met or other bizarre little occurrences. He's a magnet for the unusual. It makes sense, in a lot of ways, as he's unusual himself. He's always been an imaginative person, and maybe that was why I never noticed. I knew Phil as this incredible, happy, brilliant, amazing man and maybe that was my problem. I'd spent so much of my life idolizing him that I struggled to see the cracks forming in his foundation. I don't know... I don't know if I'll ever be able to post this but I just need to talk.Or, Dan recalling Phil's spiral.// check out my phanfic tumblr as wellhttps://amazinganxietyisnotonfire.tumblr.com/





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based, in large part, on my personal experiences so I'm not trying to say that this is how everyone experiences psychosis. Also this ending is a but abrupt, because I didn't want to romanticize it, but if you guys like it I'll add a second chapter because I really do believe that mental health issues can end happily eventually.
> 
> ** this is, of course, fiction and I don't wish this narrative on anyone.

Uh, hello internet I guess 

AmazingPhil's channel has always been filled with stories about strange people he's met or other bizarre little occurrences. He's a magnet for the unusual. It makes sense, in a lot of ways, as he's unusual himself. He's always been an imaginative person, and maybe that was why I never noticed. I knew Phil as this incredible, happy, brilliant, amazing man and maybe that was my problem. I'd spent so much of my life idolizing him that I struggled to see the cracks forming in his foundation. I don't know... I don't know if I'll ever be able to post this but I just need to talk. 

\- - -

Phil's weird stories had started to clump up. That afternoon he was telling me about a strange man "woofing" in his ear, and making me laugh. We were sat on the couch, his head leaning on my shoulder. Still giggling, I tackled him onto the couch. I couldn't help it. He just looked so happy. I was always jealous of that, of his happiness. Whenever I ended up crying on the floor because I was hopelessly upset about nothing, in particular, I envied him. I wanted to see what it was like inside his brain. 

Anyways, we were kissing, and before long he tried to flip us over. He succeeded, but he also managed to roll us off the couch. I landed rather softly and couldn't be bothered to care, especially not when he started to plant kisses on my neck. I promise this story has a purpose other than kissing, I just, I--It's hard to talk, uh. But, we were kissing until he froze. He tilted his head to the side as if trying to hear something. Something about Phil's look told me to be quiet. Before long he shook his head and we went back to kissing. 

I let myself forget about how strange that was almost immediately. There just wasn't any reason to worry. He seemed fine. I have to tell myself that no one could have seen what was going to happen next. I can't--I can't deal with the regret. I, I'm sorry. 

Okay, I can do this. I need to do this. 

It took another month for me to notice something else happening. I suppose there might have been other, little signs but this was the next really important thing. I'd woken up, for some reason, and Phil was gone. I decided to go see if he'd just decided to sleep in his own bed. I know it's dumb, but I get nervous when I don't know where Phil is. He was always so good about that. Anyways, sorry, so I was walking down the hall when I heard it. It was quiet but I could make out what sounded like Phil arguing with someone. I couldn't make out the words but he sounded really upset and I felt weird about eavesdropping. If Phil had woken up in the middle of the night to go make this call it felt wrong to try to figure out what he was saying.

But who am I kidding? Of course, I wanted to know. 

I tiptoed over so I was standing by the door and could just barely peek through the crack. He was saying things like, "no... no I can't... you need to leave... leave me alone... shut up," and I couldn't guess who he was talking to. I moved a little closer to try and make out the mumbling I heard between those words when I heard him jump to his feet. I panicked and ran back to my room as quietly as I could. I hid under the blankets until Phil came to lay next to me. I pretended to be asleep so I wouldn't have to confront him. I know, it was cowardly. 

After that, little things kept happening. He started to be missing from the bed a lot more and started to get twitchier than usual but I didn't ask him about it. I tried, once, but he laughed it off and I just let him. I just let him pretend to be okay, maybe because I needed him to be okay. I needed him to be the one to ground me after my latest existential crisis or remind me that life was just as exciting as it was scary. So I just let him pretend to be okay. 

It really started to get worse two months after I started to think anything was wrong. We were home, late at night, and Phil was lying on the couch on his laptop when all of a sudden he bolted upright and shouted, "shut up," at the top of his lungs. I was in the bedroom when he started screaming. Naturally, I ran out to see what was wrong. He just kept screaming at something to shut up. I didn't know what to do. I tried to argue with him that there wasn't anyone making noise but he looked so terrified that eventually I just stayed with him until he collapsed into tears. I remember him whimpering about how loud they were, and I didn't know what to do. All I did was help him to bed.

The next day he convinced me that it was just stress. I don't know why I let him convince me, but I did and we spent the next week being lazy. We called it pajama week, and he seemed to be getting better. Or, at least I let myself believe he was. I love him so much, and I didn't want to scare him away like I almost did back in 2012 so I just let him tell me he was okay. I gave in and nothing changed.

Phil got very secretive after that. He avoided me as much as possible and he stopped leaving the home. He only got dressed to film videos. The rest of the time he stayed in days old clothes and started sleeping in his own bedroom. He said he was sick and didn't want to get me sick, but the days turned into weeks and before I knew it he'd been "sick" for a month. It was believable because he'd lost a significant amount of weight and always looked ill, so I let myself fall for it. I let myself ignore all the times I would catch him talking to himself or looking over his shoulder. I tried to convince him to go to the doctor's, but whenever I brought it up he got really angry with me. Like swearing at me. Phil never swears. But there he was, swearing at me. 

None of you guys ever knew because he could hide it so well for short amounts of times, and when he could reshoot videos a million times it was easy to pretend, but he was getting worse. 

I didn't understand it. Most of the time he would just avoid or lie to me, but sometimes he would crack. There were a few times that he would crawl into my bed, what used to be our bed, and cry that they were too loud and beg them to stop. I would hold him, but the next morning when I tried to confront him he would scream and I would tell myself that I couldn't force him into doing anything. I was always the stubborn one, and he was always the older, smarter one. I used to run to him whenever I needed anything, whether it be permission to leave uni, a hug, or even editing tips. Now he was the one falling and I didn't have anywhere to run to, anyway to help him.

So, I just let things get worse. I would soon come to regret that. By then I knew something had to be seriously wrong, but I guess part of me didn't want to admit it. I couldn't just force myself to man up and do something to help the man that had saved my life countless times. So I just let him fall and tried to convince myself that I was helping him by just being there for him.

I don't even know why we had that stupid thing of pest killer. I must have bought it when we found rats, but we ended up learning that we didn't need a jug of the stuff. 

I went out, to get dinner with a friend, and I complained about Phil. I complained that we hadn't had sex in weeks, that he was always irritated with me, that he'd gotten so reclusive. I complained about him but I didn't tell the truth. I didn't tell about the voices or the fear. I can't believe that I was sat at dinner complaining about a lack of sex when Phil was going through hell on earth, and I didn't even understand. I still don't, to be honest. 

I went home and it was so quiet. I was used to it, so I didn't think much of it and hung up my coat. I stumbled into the kitchen, a bit tired and a bit tipsy, and was immediately hit by the smell of vomit. I looked down and Phil was sat curled up, shaking, in a puddle of his own sick. Next to him was the opened thing of pest killer. I shouted at him, asking what he'd done. All he could say was that they were gone, that the bugs were gone. I called the hospital and told them everything I knew, crying. Phil just kept going on about the termites in his organs and puking. He screamed, trying to point out the termites that he saw in the vomit. 

This next part gets blurry. I remember crying, and feeling like I'd been shot in the stomach. As I waited to see if Phil would even live I couldn't believe that I'd let him get this bad. I blame myself, logically that doesn't make sense, but I just keep wondering what I could have done differently. I had no idea how much pain he was in. I used to wish I could live inside his mind, but now I don't think I could have survived it.

Phil did. He was on life support for eleven hours before the dialysis managed to rid his system of the chemicals. I stayed with him the whole time. Once he came to he panicked, screaming, and they sedated him. The next time he woke up he was a little calmer. While he was sedated I had to sign off on his transfer to a psychiatric ward. He's an adult so they can only keep him there for 72 hours against his will, but they're hoping that he won't want to leave. 

I'm trying to get a power of attorney to show that he's not mentally well. I have to. I let him fall, I don't want to take him home and let him kill himself. He isn't safe. They say he's having a psychotic episode. They say that it might be schizophrenia. I was filling out forms all night. I don't understand how my Phil ended up drinking pest killer. I can't understand this. I know that he'll be safer at the hospital, where people understand his illness.

But it hurts so badly. 

When I told him where he was going he screamed at me that they were going to kill him and that I was abandoning him. He screamed that I hated him. I told him I would visit him tomorrow. He told me to fuck off. 

I love him, and I know this is his brain chemistry talking, but it just hurts. I just want him back, and I'm willing to put in the work to help him. I owe him. This isn't a romantic illness, and I don't think love will cure him, but I can't imagine it will hurt. It'll be okay. We'll go to the doctors and therapists and he'll get better. He has to. I need him to. He was always the most positive part of me, but now all I can see when I close my eyes is him screaming that he hates me.

That's all. 

I guess if I ever post this, you guys didn't even know that we were dating, but right now that doesn't feel like an important secret anymore.

Bye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like such an imposter. I've felt like that so many times since I started youtube but now it's worse than ever. Now not only am I pretending to be funny, smart and interesting enough to deserve the attention of six million subscribers but I'm also caught not being adult enough or responsible or I don't know, something enough to be able to take care of Phil during the one time he couldn't take care of himself. This is nothing like his overdramatic colds where I just have to make him tea. I don't have anything to compare this to. The doctor and my mirror can see right through me, I'm just hoping the sedatives blur Phil's mind enough to think that I'm worthy of being in charge of his care. 
> 
> Or, Dan tries to survive Phil's hospitalization. 
> 
> // check out my phanfic tumblr as well  
> feel free to message me with prompts or if you need to talk  
> https://amazinganxietyisnotonfire.tumblr.com/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another chapter that I tried to make pretty brutally honest. I'm thinking one final chapter with a bit happier, if still imperfect and real, of an ending. Note that in terms of medications starting to work I sped up the timeline a bit so changes are affecting him more quickly. This process can take significantly longer in real life but I wanted to condense it into a writing. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> ** this is, of course, fiction and I don't wish this narrative on anyone.

Hello Internet,

I haven't posted any real danisnotonfire videos over the past two weeks but I think that's fair, considering. Phil comes home tomorrow. This is the first time I've really tried to form any cohesive thoughts but I do have a bunch of little clips that I filmed in minute or two spurts while everything was happening. I guess I'll string those together rather than have to reiterate everything I said. I know it's unprofessional but I've spent so much time trying to be mature and in control recently that I don't want to make a neat video, okay?

\- - - wednesday  
Hello Internet

I tried to visit Phil today but he was in too much of a drugged up stupor for me to really talk to him. His left wrist was bandaged where they say he bit at his wrist hard enough to make it bleed, muttering something about letting them out. They sedated him and wrapped up his wrist. It hurt to see that even here he could get hurt. What was even more disturbing was remembering how afraid Phil is of blood. I can't imagine what horrors exist in his mind that made biting his damn wrist open seem like his only option. 

They're starting him on clozapine. It's an atypical antipsychotic, which got explained to me really slowly. I could feel the doctor trying to think about how she could break it down for the 6'3 man-child dressed in black skinny jeans with tear rimmed eyes standing in front of her. I could tell she thought I was hysterical, which was slightly true, but I still wanted to try to understand everything. Since now I'm in charge of Phil's destiny or whatever I had to sign off that they could basically give him any medicine they thought he needed. 

I feel like such an imposter. I've felt like that so many times since I started youtube but now it's worse than ever. Now not only am I pretending to be funny, smart and interesting enough to deserve the attention of six million subscribers but I'm also caught not being adult enough or responsible or I don't know, something enough to be able to take care of Phil during the one time he couldn't take care of himself. This is nothing like his overdramatic colds where I just have to make him tea. I don't have anything to compare this to. The doctor and my mirror can see right through me, I'm just hoping the sedatives blur Phil's mind enough to think that I'm worthy of being in charge of his care. 

PJ came over and cleaned the kitchen for me then made me eat some soup. He just left. I think I'm going to try not to dream about the way that the white bandage on his wrist was ever so slightly tinted pink even through all the cloth. 

\- - - thursday  
Hello Internet,

When I went into the hospital Phil freaked out. I'd never seen the blue in his eyes look as stony as it did there, with his face contorted into the type of rage that I never dreamed of associating with Phil. I don't know why he was so angry at me, or what he saw me as. I don't understand any of this but he screamed at me to fucking go back to hell. I can count the amount of times I've heard Phil say fuck on two hands and one of them was during a tongue twister that kind of tricks you into saying it and at least six of the others were bedroom related. 

It's kind of a joke, me trying to get Phil to swear. I guess I win. He's swearing. I just never imagined Phil could be like this. After a while of him shouting they made me leave. I don't know if I wanted to stay or not. I wanted to be there for Phil, yes of course, but seeing him so angry with me for something that I can't even begin to understand made me nauseous. 

I've been on tumblr all evening, trying to distract myself. First I read over all the information packets on psychotic episodes that they gave me but then I just wanted to not think. It didn't really work but I didn't have another choice. Anyways I'm going to try to sleep.

\- - - friday  
I'm drunk. 

Oh yeah, Hello Internet, 

I'm drunk.

We had some tequila and I needed it to be able to think about today.

I thought I was nauseous yesterday but that was nothing compared to today. 

Phil hid behind his bed when I came into his dorm there. I tried to say hi and he just–

He yelped and shook and begged me not to touch him. I ran out of the room. I couldn't stay there. I know that this is so much worse for him than it is for me but that doesn't help me keep any food down. Watching someone that you love as much as I love Phil in this much pain, and to think that you're causing it is indescribable. 

I want to say that I'm going back purely for Phil but I don't know, I just don't know. I was always the selfish one, wasn't I?

\- - - saturday  
Hello Internet,

I went to visit Phil today, obviously. He seemed to recognize me at first and dragged me into his room. I was so excited that he was excited to see me, as selfish as that is, so I just let him prattle on about how the doctors here are trying to poison him. I couldn't even argue with him because I didn't want him to be mad at me. We talked for the entire hour I was allowed to be there. Well, more like he talked and I tried to resist jumping over the table and trying to hold him until the world fixes itself. 

I just want to hold onto him, but I know that he's too skittish and scared and I tried to touch his forearm and he jumped so hugging is out of the question. He used to love hugs, you should have seen him once the cameras stopped rolling, he's the sweetest, most huggable person there is. Or he was? I don't know. I don't want to admit that my Phil is gone but I can't find him either. 

\- - - sunday  
Hello Internet,

I wasn't allowed to visit him today so Louise dragged me out to see a movie. It was nice, but I can't help but feel guilty for enjoying something when Phil is stuck in that awful place with those awful misfirings in his amazing brain. I know this isn't fair, and by I know I mean Louise scolded me for half an hour about being too hard on myself but I don't know. 

Anyways.

\- - - monday  
Hello Internet,

The clozapine worked! Sort of.

When I went to see Phil he was coherent. He told me he loved me. He then tried to stand up, to hug me no less, and passed out. Apparently, the medicine can make you extremely dizzy. Normally they would keep him on this anyways, at least until they could switch him to something else, but once he hit the ground he started convulsing and they realized that he was having a really dangerous reaction. Instead of fixing his brain it started causing seizures, so they had to take him off.

It hurts so much knowing that he had a moment of clarity and I'm the one signing the damn paper telling them that, no, I want them to hurl him back into that terrifying place he tried so hard to escape from. The doctors told me that it was the right thing to do, but still. I'm sending him back into that terrifying place. 

\- - - friday  
Hello Internet, They switched to risperidone on tuesday and I've been allowed to stay for longer visits, so I haven't been making these little updates every day. I feel like I'm flying. He's not perfect, to be completely honest he looks empty, but empty is better than afraid. Right? He's telling the doctors that he feels safe and I know he's not back yet, but his wrist is only a scar now and he's not shaking with fear. He's okay, or he's becoming okay. I don't know, but he doesn't look so scared and he recognizes me. He's a little cold, but the doctors say if he stays stable we can add some antidepressants. 

I'm still worried about him but I want him stable and if they say that this is stable then it's good enough for me. And he can come home tomorrow! 

\- - - monday  
uh hey Internet, Phil's asleep. There's something wrong with him. He hardly talks. He's functioning so well, so the doctors are telling me that nothing is wrong and I don't want to argue. He just looks like someone's lobotomized him. It's eery, but none of the doctors will listen to me saying that something's wrong because he's doing all the things that he needs to do, checking off all the little boxes on their charts, but something is very wrong. 

\- - - wednesday  
Phil's in the hospital again. He tried to slit his fucking wrists. He's physically fine now, I found him before he got too far so he's back in the psychiatric hospital. Apparently, the voices are still there. I'm so angry that no one listened to me and now he has six stitches in his arm. Now the doctor explained to me that the vacant looks were probably from the "mask face" side effects from risperidone and that picking up on that could have clued us in on Phil's reaction.

He kept talking but that was where I stopped listening.

Clued us in.

US

I knew and he wouldn't listen to me. I should have fought, Phil deserves someone to fight for him. 

\- - - thursday  
Hello Internet, Now he's on a mix of seroquel for the disease that they're now comfortable calling schizophrenia, (I didn't even have time to be upset about that scary diagnosis when everything was already so scary), and prozac for depression and anxiety. I protested that before this Phil wasn't depressed but a nice nurse explained to me that antidepressants are often used as a stepping stone for schizophrenic patients and once they stabilize and start to recover some of them can be taken off of everything but the antipsychotics. 

I don't understand how the old nurse, Leah, can be so sweet and optimistic. It seems like being around sick, terrified people and their upset, terrified families would suck the life out of you but she's been amazing since Phil first came in. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to stay in this place. I still pray, not even to god but just to the universe I guess, that this was all a bad dream and that Phil would just kiss me awake or trip in the kitchen so I could come catch him stealing my goddamn cereal. 

But until then we have to learn how to survive because there's no other option. That was what Leah told me when I'd started sobbing while asking her why she came back and I guess it's true. Whenever something horrible happens you just learn to live with the unimaginable. That's what I'm trying to do here. 

\- - - monday  
Hello Internet! Today is the first day I've visited Phil since thursday. Friday they said he was still adjusting to the withdrawals and that it would be better for me to leave but then on saturday I came in and he was in group! I never thought I would be this proud of Phil for sitting in a room playing an empathy game with ten other hospital patients but I'm so proud. Usually, he would panic part way through or just refuse to go. 

Today when I visited him he seemed the most normal that I'd seen him for months. He was still anxious but he complained about the food and asked about his houseplants. I caught him watching something behind me intently but he didn't freak out about it. 

Leah told me later, after the doctor gave me a bullshit answer, that he might still experience these hallucinations for a little while but him learning that they weren't real and not reacting to them was incredibly important. She explained to me that recovering was going to be more than just medication and gave me a few more links to read up on. 

\- - - tuesday  
Hello Internet, Phil is coming home tomorrow! This time, even if he still has symptoms, he seems like himself. It's hard, for me at least guys, not to be cynical but this time feels different. I'm obviously nervous but I'm so excited to be able to interact with him without nurses doing their safety checks every ten minutes. I've definitely learned that hospitals are helpful but I can't imagine anyone goes back to feeling completely normal there. 

I haven't felt at peace for months now and I still don't, at all really. I don't actually have a great way to end that sentence. I normally edit out those types of lines or reshoot but I haven't been editing these so I guess I'll just say, I'm not at peace but at least he's coming home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to. 
> 
> Or, both Dan and Phil try to recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make a chapter that was both optimistic and real. I hope I accomplished that. This isn't everyone's experience with psychosis or with recovery, and recovery can look different for everyone. Regardless I hope you enjoyed this. Please comment in you did!
> 
> ** as usual: this is, of course, fiction and I don't wish this narrative on anyone.

Hello Internet,

I'm finally actually posting these, with Phil's permission, of course. I guess you already knew that though.. he's been home for two months now, and things are maybe not perfect, but they're the most okay they've felt in half a year so that's something. I actually asked Phil if he wanted to be in this video, but he said no. He said that someday he'd be ready to tell his side of the story but that he wasn't ready just yet. Besides, he said this is my story. I'm going to try not to speculate too much about Phil's thoughts because I don't want to misrepresent him, so this is just the last two months as they have happened to me. 

During the first week that Phil was home, he spent three hours in group therapy every day. I got told that I shouldn't leave him alone for any amount of time, which wasn't hard. It would have been much harder for me to leave him alone. I was so paranoid, and I guess I still am a bit. It's just so hard to let him out of my sight when the last two times he's been alone he's ended up in the back of an ambulance. I'm still learning to let him breathe on his own. He needs to be able to feel the solid ground, I suppose, but all of my instincts are telling me to try and hold him as far away from anything unsafe as possible. 

I'm getting out of order. Recently time has seemed so distorted that it's hard to make sense of all my memories. But he came home from the hospital, and the first day I was so terrified to scare him but even more afraid to leave him alone so I just kind of stalked him around the apartment. I walked him to therapy and stayed in the waiting room pretending to be calm enough to play iPhone games for three hours. Then we came home and I spent any time that he was alone, even in the bathroom, panicking inside. I made him keep the door cracked and sat next to the door the entire time he was showering. I didn't really understand the importance of preserving his, I don't know, dignity yet. Safety seemed more important than dignity. Plus we used to shower together sometimes, and I couldn't understand why he would be weird about this. He didn't explain why it was so mortifying for a while. 

Phil is so precious that he didn't say anything about my stalking until the third day. He told me that the lurking was creepy and that I needed to either leave him alone or just come actually spend time with him. The ever present watching and following was, understandably, creepy. After that, I tried to stop the silent watching and replaced it with just trying to act like he was normal, but anytime he seemed at all distracted I would panic and think he was hallucinating again. I would beg him to open up and explain to me what was happening, what he was seeing but he refused to. I understand why he didn't want to tell me anything, whenever he opened up at all or seemed upset I burst into tears because I didn't want him to be in pain. I know that was selfish.

But, uh we spent that first week playing a lot of mario kart. I would try to sleep with my arm on him so he would need to wake me up if he left the bed. Even with that, I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic to check that he was still breathing. As scary as these nightly checks were, they were only interrupting the constant nightmares about Phil dying.

Phil didn't cry until the second week of being home. We were actually in the middle of a round of mario kart when he put the controller down and just... cracked. I guess it made sense, honestly, the crying made more sense than the happy front that he was putting up, and I knew what to do with crying Phil. I'd seen him cry before, so this was something that I clung to for some sense of normalcy, as terrible as that sounds. We watched movies and cuddled. Then he stopped crying. 

Phil has always been the type to grin and bear it. He tries desperately to be happy, in a way that I've never understood or been able to emulate. I couldn't understand why he wasn't angry. The world had just thrown this terrible thing at him and he was just... okay with it. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. I didn't get it, I was so very angry with the world and he was just taking it. It scared me, so much. He took his pills and went to therapy and only cried anymore when he thought I was asleep. I pretended to be asleep, pretended not to hear him because I didn't know what I would say. Things just passed and I held my breath around him. 

The next week he got quiet again. He would stare at the kitchen floor and ask me to tell him what had happened. He said he didn't remember most of it, and that he couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. It took days and days of begging for me to actually start to explain at all. That was when he found the videos and said I should post them. The knowing was important to him, even if it was painful. He apologized incessantly and I didn't know what to say.

That seems to be a common theme; I never know what to say. But life went on anyways. 

The weirdest, yet somehow most honest moment of his recovery happened soon. It had been two or so weeks He somehow managed to slip from what was quickly becoming our bed again without me noticing. I heard someone in the kitchen and ran down as quickly as I could, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. There was Phil, of all things, with his hand in my box of cereal. I laughed, relieved that he was safe.

Phil was upset by that because I wasn't angry with him. I didn't understand but he explained that I'd been treating him like he was glass and I said that I wasn't sure that I could promise that I wouldn't worry about him. He didn't see himself throwing up the poison he'd downed or watch himself bleeding out in the bathroom. He didn't try not to hyperventilate when calling hospital. He didn't spend eleven hours watching his vital signs, praying that they wouldn't falter. He didn't know the anxiety that I felt.

He said that at least I didn't have to live feeling like everyone was just waiting for me to do something terrible.

I don't remember who cried first that night. 

I'm making this our to be a terrible two months. There are good things, maybe things that wouldn't have seemed special before all of this but now the little things seem to have more significance. I guess I should put a disclaimer because I think I'm messing up my words here. That's one of the flaws of leaving this unscripted. I'm not saying that there's some bullshit conclusion or metaphor that makes all of this horrible stuff worth it, that makes seeing Phil in this much pain worth it, but it happened. There's nothing I can do to make this have not happened, so if there's anything at all that I could learn from this, anything at all that can be construed as positive then I'm going to fucking cling to it.

I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to. 

That's what we're doing, that's what we have to do. We're surviving. Sometimes Phil talks to me, he tells me about some of the horrible things his mind tells or shows him. The better he gets the more he can tell me without it feeling unsafe for him. He still asks me if things are real occasionally, but at least he's asking me, and he still gets scared of the horrible thoughts that he can't get out of his head, but he'd not on life support anymore, and the gashes he made and the place he bit his skin open are just scars. He's alive, we're surviving.

Nothing is promised, and I know Phil could slip again, that things could get bad again and I won't lie to you all and say that I'm not afraid, but the things he's doing now are going to help him keep from falling. Help him survive another fall if he has to.

Phil takes medicine, recently it's settled on seroquel, abilify, and lexapro. I'm sure when he makes a video he'll talk more about that. He also goes to therapy, that's actually where he is now. He says therapy has been really helpful. For a long time, he would get on me about seeing someone too, to help deal with all the anxiety and depression that I've been dodging nearly since primary schools, the feelings that were sent into hyperdrive by Phil's situation and I laughed him off. He's the sick one, not me. I'm nowhere near as bad as he is. And that's true, I think, but I don't want to be scared all the time. If I can't say that I want to feel okay for myself, then at least so that I can consistently talk to Phil without bursting into tears randomly. So I set up an appointment right before I filmed this, even if I feel guilty about needing help when Phil is so much more hurt. Phil drowning in deeper waters doesn't make me any closer to solid ground. The magnitude of his pain does not heal mine by comparison. I just need to remind myself of this. 

I think that's all I have to say. We're surviving. Watch for AmazingPhil's side of things and please try not to be afraid to ask for help, as cliche as that sounds. 

Thank you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end? Thank you so much for reading. I was really nervous to post anything that is so personal to me, as I borrowed a lot of this from my own experiences with schizophrenia, and seeing how it impacted the people I love.


End file.
